The answer is, of course, social, economic and political mayhem. Thousands of ordinary middle-class New Zealanders would be ruined. The country’s leading banks would teeter on the brink of failure. Credit would dry up overnight. New Zealand would be plunged headlong into a deep recession. Thousands of “millennial” Kiwis would lose their jobs, closely followed by thousands of redundant Gen-Xers. Poverty would surge upwards to engulf layers of society untouched by deprivation for more than eighty years. In short order, shock and disbelief would give way to unrelenting political rage – and a lust for inter-generational vengeance.
Hickey’s plan has as much chance of being adopted by either main party as you have propelling yourself to the moon using only farts.
Like most people here I think he government should embark on a government funded house building spree AKA the 1950s and 1960s.
But they won't. Labour is all about technocratic woke neoliberalism – and in this country that is an election winning combination, since our technocratic elites are competent and our liberal middle class who runs everything is woke as fuck.
Of course, you CAN try and drain that swamp by voting for outsider candidates and get your revolution to cut house prices by 50%, but you are far, far more likely to end up with Donald Trump or Boris Johnson than you are with Che Guevara.
So really, if we want housing change we are all going to have to start getting real about what levers a neoliberal government under pressure might pull to get more houses built. And that is only, in NZ, going to be through the NGO housing sector.
Hang on there, are you actually claiming Trotter is right (a 1990s style recession eventuates from Hickeys housing policy) and that this is a political price worth paying?
More along the lines of implement Hickey's suggestions and reap the benefits.
As we have found, there are unintended consequences in radical times. After all, how many recent articles are there where economists have either got it totally wrong it didn't anticipate certain outcomes?
Would you like to elaborate on the benefits of the 1990s recession for us? I think Ruth Richardsons position was probably that the reforms getting passed justified the pain. But with 30 years of hindsight we might consider if the consequences were justified especially for those whose careers were interrupted by the high unemployment of that time.
However its not a zero sum game. Whatever the cause the general fall out from a major recession would easily be worse than the on going property price rises.
Of note, last year the government had an opportunity to run that experiment just by implementing lockdown without the accompanying wage subsidy (which was proportionally the largest in the world). This would certainly have landed the economy in a recession and quite likely would have prevented the latest price rises.
Unless you think that was preferable (Labour would have lost the election of course in this case) then the reforms must avoid such a recession or have a plan to mitigate it. Pertinently Trotter is asking the economist (Hickey) what that plan is because its widely known this is a likely consequence of such a price collapse. Its also what happened across multiple countries when their property bubbles collapsed, we have somewhat more evidence its a real problem than just recons. Its also the kind of advice being given to Ardern and why she is telling the country she doesn't want to cause a price collapse.
The surface dismissal of what Trotter is saying without either engaging with the argument (or even just to state their belief that property market collapse wouldn't cause a recession) doesn't endear.
This is incorrect, though a widely held myth. Soaring house prices are based on what the latest batch of house buyers are willing to pay for the houses they purchased. Often they borrowed to make those purchases, so also deposit and lending criteria, etc…
But in no way did government spending facilitate those decisions. The government could have funded itself in many ways including, normal DMO operations (though at higher interest rates) or OMF or if Grant Robertson found 60 billion down the back of the couch.
So how should the government have completed its deficit spending to avoid these recent price rises?
It seems to me Bernard Hickey is entirely unserious about solving the countries housing issues and instead he (along with a huge proportion of the vocal insolent left) prefers the high ground of oppositional politics. Why else would you propose a scheme which has zero chance of implementation?
Either Bernard Hickey wishes to be taken seriously on the issue or he does not. If he wants his views to be relegated to the background noise of a increasingly petulant twitterati left then he can carry on proposing such pie in the sky policy prescriptions. Or he can start coming up with some concrete ideas that might have a chance of actually being adopted.
As we have experienced a rise so meteoric in the last year – Part due to government action of quantitive easing and throwing $$ without taking action to counteract what this has done to property. The market has plenty of slack to allow for the market to drop to levels that we were experiencing this time last year. Problem is that our PM finds moderate increases as acceptable. To our PM: every period that rises are over and above disposable income increases guess what ? – It gets more difficult to buy a family home, or are many comfortable with a timid response ??
Less terrible than were we are now 🤫, but those who comment regarding aversions to see property prices drops forget that a return to where we were 6months. What other options are there ? stagnant property prices for many years to come as wage growth of 1% allows for an improving the house affordability trend ?
The point being that no-one wants to either buy or lend into a falling market, because of the risk of destroying all the equity and going underwater.
If there is one thing worse than a house that's too damn expensive (there is a chance you can work with that), it's a house you dare not buy regardless.
I mean, people who want a house rather than an investment with a capital gain might be interested, mad fools they are. Who just buys a house to live in it lol
Here's the missing reporting on the massive "stop the steal" protests at state capitols all around the US that the fake news media censored. (check the whole thread)
While the Democrats like to think they're the 'natural party of government' in the USA, the reality is that they only very narrowly won this election. The entire popular majority for the President resides in just three states, California, New York and Florida. The swings virtually everywhere else were tiny; the fundamental voting patterns have barely changed in decades.
And you may want to keep in mind, even when losing, Trump gained more Hispanic and Black votes this election than any Republican President ever. If it were not for the shambolic COVID response, Trump would have likely romped home.
In the meantime the Republicans are now composed almost entirely of right wing populists of various nutty flavours, and their traditional support base among the business, national security and social conservatives has been completely frozen out. A smart Democrat leadership will move toward these groups, representing as they do real money and large voting blocs.
Of course this analysis isn't intended to make you happy – it's a look at what is happening rather than what you might wish would.
Sure, the Dems need to actually win in order to get shit done. But they don't need to be as pathetic as Obama and pander to Wall St quite so obsequiously. 🤮
Maybe they think themselves as true Scythians where revolutions are infinite and in continuous turmoil (and continuous revolutions have a second law constraint) see Zamyatin.
The spiritual revolutionary, the genuine freeman and Scythian, is envisaged by Ivanov-Razumnik 1 thus: he “works for the near or distant future,” he knows that “the way of the revolution is verily a way of the cross.” We can almost agree with this defini- tion, but how often “almost” makes a world of difference. The true Scythian does not know of any straddling “or.” He works only for the distant future, never for the near future, and never for the present. Hence to him there is one way — Golgotha — and no other, and one conceivable victory — to be crucified — and no other. Christ on Golgotha, between two thieves, bleeding to death drop by drop, is the victor — because he has been crucified, be- cause, in practical terms, he has been vanquished. But Christ vic- torious in practical terms is the grand inquisitor. And worse, Christ victorious in practical terms is a paunchy priest in a silk- lined purple robe, who dispenses benedictions with his right hand and collects donations with the left. The Fair Lady, in legal marriage, is simply Mrs. So-and-So, with hair curlers at night and a migraine in the morning. And Marx, come down to earth, is simply a Krylenko . 2 Such is the irony and such is the wisdom of fate. Wisdom, because this ironic law holds the pledge of eternal movement forward. The realization, materialization, practical victory of an idea immediately gives it a philistine hue. And the true Scythian will smell from a mile away the odor of dwellings, the odor of cabbage soup, the odor of the priest in his purple cassock, the odor of Krylenko — and will hasten away from the dwellings, into the steppe, to freedom.
There's the newish dynamic prosperous urban centres of Portland and Seattle that attract a population that is young, progressive, diverse, energetic, possibly a little hot-headed, and they aren't going to take shit.
Then there's the older backblocks that aren't doing as well as they think they're entitled to and think they're still in the 1800s when the constitution of Oregon explicitly forebade non-whites. (Washington state didn't quite do that, but the vibe was still pretty clear).
So the regular rumbles between the various factions are now kind of a routine thing. Almost an expected ritual.
If there is one thing guaranteed to lose support in the USA it's political violence. not only is it morally wrong and dangerous at every level, supporting it politically as many Democrat leaders have been doing all year is monumentally stupid.
It's possibly the one factor that turned what should have been a slam dunk win over Trump into a nail-biter.
Democratic leaders have been condemning all violence for the entire last four terms. Suggesting they haven't is amplifying a right-wing smear.
In stark contrast to Darth Hater, who had been encouraging violence and dog-whistle cheering it on, with an occasional feeble hostage video repudiation when even his sycophants thought he had gone waaay too far.
At least 13 Biden campaign staff members posted on Twitter on Friday and Saturday that they made donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which opposes the practice of cash bail, or making people pay to avoid pre-trial imprisonment. The group uses donations to pay bail fees in Minneapolis.
Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement to Reuters that the former vice president opposes the institution of cash bail as a “modern day debtors prison.”
But the campaign declined to answer questions on whether the donations were coordinated within the campaign, underscoring the politically thorny nature of the sometimes violent protests.
Bates instead pointed to Biden’s comments that protesters have the right to be angry but that more violence won’t solve justice problems.
Note: not Democratic Leaders; their campaign staff, in an unofficial capacity; donating to a third-party that bails out protestors; and a statement by Biden calling out violence.
The fact that left wing protests regularly turned into violence of one sort or another virtually all damned year – and that protest leaders and Democrats did little but token hand-wringing to stop it is something the left owns now whether you like it or not.
BLM and other leftish protests regularly turned into violence (at a rate of about 4% to 6% of all protests) mostly because of police and white supremacists initiating violence.
The police had an obligation to ensure protestors could exercise their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble: the police abjectly failed, and indeed, were often the proximate cause of the violation of the protestors rights. In direct contravention of their obligations and oaths.
That RWNJs are now furiously gaslighting to deflect blame doesn’t change the facts.
edit: here’s just one link of many that are easily found just be googling police brutality blm protests.
So the link to the Antifa protest yesterday that sparked this thread, is a deep fake video? Or white supremacists reacting to police provocation?
And if BLM want to base an entire movement on the basis of less than 20 unjustified deaths per year (out of tens of million of police encounters), then your 4 – 6% of protests that turn ugly cannot be dismissed either.
The simple truth you keep dodging is that while I don't have to hassle any brain cells to rank the order of importance between the Capitol invasion and the the burning down of a Seven11 – the ongoing news clips showing political violence done either in the name of or under the cover of ostensibly left wing protests all year cannot be erased from the voters mind either.
And unless I've missed something, I have yet to see any pro-BLM/Antifa people here on this thread actually condemning the Antifa violence seen even yesterday. What we get instead are denial, minimising and deflection at every step.
The fact that you continue to misrepresent what your own links say, to demonise civil rights protests, makes clear the rabidity of your own partisanship, whether you like it or not.
So you want to reserve the option to both allow the left to condemn political violence for reasons of respectability, but at the same time cheer it on when it suits because 'racism'.
Of course I support violence when I think it's justified. Why would I oppose justified violence?
Does it extend to other people's idea of justification? Within reason. Individual circumstances are not always precise, nor is the level of violence chosen.
I'm a great fan of a "reasonable person" assessment. I know it doesn't fit with your desire for categorical imperatives that can be adapted as rules for your positronic neural network, but that's the difficulty of being human.
And as we previously discovered, what you count as "political violence" is not as categorical as you claim. Damaging property and threatening people with assault in order to protest materialism is fine, if it's "performative" enough.
Of course you can claim the 'cleansing of the Temple' was political violence because it suits your argument. I think it was a legitimate protest, disruptive yes, but not violent. (There is no evidence from the account anyone was hurt.)
That's my point, you think you're being reasonable, when I don't. So which one of us gets to define what is acceptable or not? It just becomes a matter of opinion, and the fucking nazis are just as free to have their opinion as Antifa.
My argument is simply that whenever there is any doubt, political violence must be out of bounds. The most watertight definition is the most reliable one.
That's my point, you think you're being reasonable, when I don't. So which one of us gets to define what is acceptable or not? It just becomes a matter of opinion, and the fucking nazis are just as free to have their opinion as Antifa.
Neither of us do. There is no central Decider who makes the determination. We are judged by our peers, voters, judiciary, and history. All of them get to change their minds at any time. You might despise that sort of ethical melieu, but the objective isn't a categorical line in the sand. The objective is to not go down in history as being too much of a dick. John Brown is another dude who I'd rather be like than someone who just frowned at slavery and did nothing.
My argument is simply that whenever there is any doubt, political violence must be out of bounds. The most watertight definition is the most reliable one.
Have you not been paying attention? There is always some shred of doubt. By your rules, anyone who tried to kill Hitler in the 1930s was wrong, as well. Bullshit.
solkta is now using a modern dictionary to parse events that took place 2000 years ago.
If you think that era was at all touched by the concerns of the modern woke, you really need to read some history.
Setting aside the historicity of the bible narrative here are some examples of the 'woke'-ness RL so derides:
How Jesus broke down racial barriers:
Jesus went to Samaria to save the Woman at the Well. Most Jews went around Samaria just to avoid “those people.” There was total segregation between them (Jn. 4:9), but Jesus had a divine appointment with a broken woman who desperately needed Him. The disciples were shocked that Jesus even spoke to her (Jn. 4:27), yet He took the time to reveal His Messiahship to her (Jn. 4:25-26). As a result, a two-day revival broke out in Samaria (Jn. 4:39-42).
Jesus healed a Roman Centurion’s servant (Mt. 8:5-13). There was much racial tension between Jews and Romans. The Jews despised them for occupying their land, controlling their lives, and overtaxing them. Jesus was willing to go to his house, but most Jews wouldn’t even consider going near the house of an “unclean” Gentile. The Centurion said Jesus could just speak the word only. He knew how the chain of command worked. Then Jesus commended his faith and healed his servant.
Jesus delivered the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter (Mt. 15:21-28). Jesus went beyond the borders of Israel to meet this Greek woman. At first, He ignored her (Mt. 15:23). Then, He excluded her—“I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 15:24). Next, it seems, He insulted her—“It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs” (Mt 15:26). (Jews often referred to Gentiles as dogs.) She must have been a bulldog because she refused to take no for an answer (Mt. 15:27). Jesus was so impressed with her faith that He delivered her daughter from demons.
Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:30-37). Samaritans were the “bad guys” to the Jews, but Jesus made one the hero of this story to show there is good in people we may not like. Notice the priest and the Levite (two “good guys”) did nothing to help the victim. Jesus redefined who is our neighbor is—not just the person on our same street, but any person of any race who is in need.
Jesus went out of His way to include the Gentiles and break down racial barriers. After all, He wasn’t just the King of the Jews. As the Samaritans testified, “We know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the WORLD” (Jn. 4:42).
Well that of course is why Christ is remembered – he did challenge the norms of the era and set in place a moral framework that still informs the modern world.
But if you imagine the account of the 'cleansing of the Temple' would have stacked up as 'violent' in terms of how people thought in those quite different times, I think you and McF are suffering a quite bad dose of presentism.
Notably Christ's approach to the issues you list is based however not in identity politics and power struggle, but through the 'rebirth of the soul' within the heart of each individual. That's my problem with woke – it takes good causes and uses them to cloak bad actions.
By your rules, anyone who tried to kill Hitler in the 1930s was wrong, as well. Bullshit.
Well that's because we know what happened subsequently in the 1940's. Now how would you feel if someone had tried or even succeeded in assassinating Trump?
Now how would you feel if someone had tried or even succeeded in assassinating Trump?
Hmmm. In 2016? Probably would have been a bit ambivalent about it. Less ambivalent if I knew literally hundreds of thousands of lives might have been saved.
But then if Hitler had been assassinated in 1935 and I was reading about it in a history book, same deal.
RL, why can't you just admit that you were wrong? Why are you so incapable of that?
In the 14 yrs I've been commenting here I never thought to demand that of anyone.
My point is simple – if you are going to insist on reserving the right to use political violence in the name of your own cause, then you will have no defense when your opponents do the same.
Probably would have been a bit ambivalent about it.
I would have condemned it absolutely outright. As would indeed the vast majority of 'reasonable' people I suggest.
You've completely forgotten the very purpose of politics. It's to substitute dialog and negotiation for coercion and war.
When you allow violence to creep in through the cracks – you will inevitably find it betrays democracy and civilisation. Everything you thought worth saving.
I would have condemned it absolutely outright. As would indeed the vast majority of 'reasonable' people I suggest.
Yeah, his repeated early moves on race-based immigration didn't worry many people you'd regard as "reasonable". But they were pretty fucking strong portents of looming fascism.
I'd have been against it a bit because maybe he hadn't met the threshold of harm that warranted assassination, but for it a bit because he looked like he had a good chance of going there. Ambivalent. Hell, I'm still ambivalent about whether it would have been a good thing at the start of his presidency. Would Pence's Gilead have been worse than 400k covid deaths and open fascism? Can't say for sure.
What happens when the State claims a monopoly on violence, but then that State goes rogue, ignores the democratic will of the people, and indeed begins oppressing its own? From the Declaration of Independence:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
@RL In the 14 yrs I've been commenting here I never thought to demand that of anyone.
Some people are able to admit when they are wrong about something and this enables them to learn new things. Others just want to prance around like a peacock.
Well compared to say Yeltsin using tanks to shell the Kremlin, how does the 'storming of the Capitol' stack up? Just a little singe?
My point I think is this; unless you have categorically ruled political violence out of bounds, then you (or anyone else) will always find a reason to justify it to suit themselves.
I don't think it was reasonable – but I'll bet the vast majority of people who went almost certainly thought it was. The accounts I've read support this.
So? They are unreasonable. Who decides that? People in general, over time.
What do we know, through careful examination of the facts? The insurrectionists got much of their plan wrong. They lacked reason. They livestreamed their crimes. Lack of reason. They had faith in dolt45. Lack of reason.
Yelstin: there was an attempted coup. Coup plotters had arrest lists and military forces. He organised resistance to the coup. Coup plotters didn't surrender, he shelled their position. All reasonable actions.
If you doubt your own ability to assess reasonable actions and arguments, that's your problem.
If you doubt your own ability to assess reasonable actions and arguments, that's your problem.
I'm not the one who is willing to commit violence in the name of your always reasonable cause, nor condone an assassination if it suits your political view.
I've assessed that violence represents the abdication of politics, the point at which you've plunged into the abyss.
You will be the good man who stands by and does nothing because you can't trust your mental faculties and you might therefore be wrong. Frowns don't stop nazis.
They are unreasonable. Who decides that? People in general, over time.
Which is why we reserve violence for the state; it alone has the capacity to make the collective determination you're asking for here.
And if the state has degenerated into an intolerable tyranny then it can be resisted by defying it courageously. Ghandi, Mandela and King showed how it’s done.
Actually, if you think Mandela was a pacifist then you're probably right to mistrust your judgement.
BLM protests aren't the riots you paint them as, but even if they all were, MLK said "riots are the language of the unheard". He didn't approve, but he understood. He didn't just fire off categorical imperatives as an excuse to dismiss the issue.
Gandhi was also not as categorical as you: "where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Apparently also recruited Indians to serve as British soldiers in WW1.
Let's see: Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Jesus… none of them lived up to Redlogix's pacifist ideals.
Yet each of these leaders are held in such high esteem precisely because they achieved their remarkable goals with the bare minimum of disruption and force necessary. Their primary leverage was a moral not physical.
The general trend of human evolution has been away from coercion and violence to resolve conflicts of interest, toward dialog and negotiation. In this process we have slowly ceded our right to personal forceful action upward to higher authority. First to the clan, the tribe, the warlord, the city state and now the nation state.
At each step we've gained increasing freedom in our daily lives from violence. At this point in time humans are probably the least violent we've ever been. Pinker has made this case very well.
This is not necessarily because our personal capacity for violence has diminished, but because we have created social structures that regulate and moderate it on our collective behalf.
Meanwhile, in the real world nobody lives up to your categorical imperatives, St RedLogix. Not even the people you list.
I agree, minimum force should be used. I worked under that rule for 20 years, always knowing any instance could be put to a test of reasonableness in court. But "never"? You're setting absurdly high goals for any movement, there, let alone one you seem to oppose.
And in my view the principle of non-violence must take precedence. There is no more excuse for individuals resorting to violence for a political purpose than there is for domestic violence.
It's the same logic, just taken to the next wider social level.
Yet manifestly they're all celebrated precisely for the success of their non-violent approach.
It's a very odd thing that you should now be consigning them to the same dustbin history along with all the assorted thugs, warlords and failed revolutionaries who only ever reached for violent means to prosecute their cause.
If that's your genuine take-away from the discussion, all I can do is be thankful that you have enough awareness remaining to doubt the reasonableness of your beliefs.
You may want to consider that what we think permissible, changes with time. My view is that the boundaries on violence are being gradually extended from virtually no limits at all – toward ideally a total prohibition in any form.
RL, your view seems not to correspond with reality. The difference between those engaged in violence in support of a fascist coup and others fighting oppression seems quite clear to other commenters. For one thing; the oppressors expect to get away with their crimes, whereas the oppressed expect to be harshly punished, but do it anyway.
This is the best I have seen it stated:
There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!
Everyone would want to see the correct legal outcome that most people considered just; but it would be a mob that went on a rampage afterward if they didn't like it.
… political violence. not only is it morally wrong and dangerous at every level, supporting it politically as many Democrat leaders have been doing all year is monumentally stupid.
Democratic politicians are outspoken supporters of the most extreme violence by insurrectionary mobs in Venezuela and by Israeli snipers against unarmed protestors in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank.
Where on earth do you get the idea that Democrats oppose violence?
I am not that familiar with twitter, but this Disclose.tv thread looks a bit dodgy there Poisson.
Hopefully, in the next few days, we will see some details about those eight arrested. I wouldn't be quite so quick to ascribe the actions to "Antifa", though I guess ICE is arguably fascist enough for people to be anti it. But Anarchist is not the same as Antifa, despite sounding similar, and sometimes sharing similar objectives. The J20 protests the previous 4 years have certainly seemed a bit larger, but also featured flag burning. From 2017:
The day's events began with a contentious American flag burning event that was organized by a small group of anarchists around 2:30 p.m. No arrests were made at that time, but Portland Police took several wooden poles and other materials from protesters that could have been used as weapons.
But it's not entirely clear if the group is the same as those of previous years with McKelvey, then leader of "Portland's Resistance" seeming to have moved to Atlanta in mid-2018. And there are no repeated names in the lists of arrested between the two years (can't be bothered hunting up 2016,18&19 details – have enough tabs open as it is). Also not the only protest in Portland that day:
Another demonstration involving a different group of people got underway at 4 p.m. at Northeast Portland's Irving Park.
Portland Police said they were aware of a third protest, set for 8 p.m. at South Portland's Caruthers Park.
The Global Disinformation Index seems to think that they know. Naming Disclose.tv as one of the top 10 biggest profiteers from publishing election disinformation in November 2020.
Poisson, yeah – I should have been more specific about my search terms; "Antifa protest", was clearly insufficient, but quicker to type. The Seattle protest looks more minor, so only two arrests there.
I would apologize for derailing your thread, but seeing as you were doing that to Andre yourself, won't.
Pretty much. When the government got serious about child abuse and changed the law to allow uplift where the threat was clear Maori activists and leaders couldn't see past their reflexive sense of grievance.
Maori leadership has chosen not to see James Whakaruru as the victim of child abuse with painful questions about Maori culpability, preferring to focus on the easy portrayal of the likes of Te Rangi Whakaruru and Benny Haerewa as victims of colonisation. As you say, now they will get their chance to own the results.
The 2020 report found that moving Maori babies into state care happens earlier than it does for non-Māori – with the decision increasingly being made before the child is even born.
"There were eight times more concerns reported for unborn Māori babies in 2019, as compared with 2004. In that same time, reported concerns for non-Māori increased only 4.5 times.
In 2010 there were 36 approvals for unborn Māori children to be removed from their families at birth – by 2017 that had risen to 93, despite findings of actual abuse decreasing over that same period.
In 2019, 0.67 percent of pēpi aged three months or under were taken into state care, but only 0.13 percent of non-Māori.
Urgent decisions to remove pepi doubled over the last decade, but stayed the same for non-Māori."
Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft had words to say about that.
"And 48 percent of pregnant women whose pēpi were taken into state care before birth had been in state care themselves at some point."
"From 2014 to 2017, the removal of Māori babies ordered into state custody before birth almost doubled."
Yes , the stats are difficult reading but that wasnt my point (and it may be premature in any case, the organisation is still state led)….I was suggesting that rather than Maori highlighting the failings of the state organisation, it is likely that the state (and certainly others) will highlight any failings of a Maori led response….and my concern is the objective is lost.
Though as already noted it would be difficult to do any worse than the existing structure
Professor Stephen Hoadley starts his talk about the state of democracy in the USA by stating that Venezuela is a third world county and implying that it's democracy and thereby it's elections are and where undemocratic.
Jesse I would have thought that you would have enough knowledge around world politics to push back on this false narrative Mr. Hoadley openly used, which is widely known as fake news.
If true (which I doubt) it says a lot about the IQ of the average voter in Venezuela, ie the ones that are left with half the county voting with their feet vs a fraudulent ballot box
The BBC, ( no right wing attack dog) The US state department all think it was a bit dodgy plus the millions who have left Venezuela just as a start Putin, China North Korea and Cuba said it was ok so that all helps to affirm it was dodgy
???!!?? You are obviously unfamiliar with their role of megaphone for the right wing British regime—most shamefully in the persecution of the dissenting journalist Julian Assange. The BBC's short-lived democratic deviation in 2003, when Andrew Gilligan went rogue and actually told the truth about Blair and Campbell's manipulation of documents leading up to the destruction of Iraq, was soon ended.
The US state department all think it was a bit dodgy
The Trump regime, that is.
plus the millions who have left Venezuela
They left a country under brutal, and illegal, sanctions. That shows what suffering has been inflicted on the country by the United States, the U.K., and Colombia; it does not imply they are opponents of their elected government.
just as a start Putin, China North Korea and Cuba said it was ok so that all helps to affirm it was dodgy
???? You have no evidence to back up your claim, other than the word of the Trump regime.
Well written, Adrian. Steve Hoadley is an extremely unsavoury commentator, not a lot different from the likes of Michael Bassett and Waikato's notorious Dov Bing. During the November 2012 escalation in Israeli terror against the citizens of Gaza, named with brutal sarcasm "Operation Pillar of Defense", Hoadley went onto Radio Rhema and expressed his support not for the victims, but the killers.
I fear that you're wasting your time trying to reason with Jesse Mulligan; he's one of the more susceptible and easily bamboozled broadcasters. He was, and presumably still is, a true believer in the Russiagate nonsense, as we can see in this 2016 interview with another dodgy academic, Al Gillespie….
JESSE MULLIGAN: Why do ceasefires break down, Al, if uh, if no one enjoys war? [snickers nervously]
PROFESSOR AL GILLESPIE: There’s no trust on the ground. No one believes that it’s safe to bring in aid, water, or food, and so unless you can get the most basic modicum of trust, you can’t build up.
JESSE MULLIGAN: So how do you CREATE it?
PROFESSOR AL GILLESPIE: You get the teams, well you need two things. One, people have to get tired of fighting, and neither side has to believe that they can WIN. At the moment, there’s so much money, men, and ammunition going into the fight, both sides believe that they still have the upper hand. And then you need to have confidence-building measures, and right now they can’t even achieve THAT.
JESSE MULLIGAN:[speaking very slowly, to convey thoughtfulness] Sometimes when I read this stuff I get the sense that Russia are L-L-L-LOOKIN’ for trouble, are L-L-L-LOOKIN’ to create tension with the U.S. Is that fair?
[This is another one of your comments that’s just a litany of ad homs and snide remarks about people whilst dearly lacking in content. To give it some appearance of realism and gravity, it is ornamented with one of those boring transcripts, which is no better than those puerile images that you’re so fond of. Lastly, it is about something utterly trivial that happened years ago.
Cut out the crap and stop the ad homs for the sake of it. Add some substance and contents to your comments, make it interesting and relevant, if you can, or keep quiet. This site is not a personal sandpit for you to indulge in your pet likes & dislikes. This is your warning – Incognito]
Yes listening to Mulligan (which I only do very rarely these days) is like listening to a slightly sophisticated teenage radio show…along with most of his music choices, morning report has pretty much sunk to that same level now as well. It seems like serious unbiased news is well and truly a thing of the past on RNZ now (with the rare exception of course)…lucky we still RNZ concert.
This is another one of your comments that’s just a litany of ad homs and snide remarks about people whilst dearly lacking in content.
Adrian Thornton made the comment about Prof. Hoadley's unfounded and politically incendiary claims about Venezuela—Adrian called them a "false narrative"—and he also expressed his disappointment at the quality, or lack of quality, in Jesse Mulligan's performance. I simply reinforced Adrian's points by providing evidence of even worse performances in the past by Hoadley and Mulligan. Both of the examples I provided were accurate; they were neither ad hominem nor snide.
To give it some appearance of realism and gravity, it is ornamented with one of those boring transcripts
I provided 14 lines of a larger transcript to illustrate my point about Mulligan's credulous and ill informed comments. It is indeed realistic, and any lack of gravity is entirely due to the two people involved in that awful conversation.
Add some substance and contents to your comments, make it interesting and relevant, if you can, or keep quiet.
I kept my comment rigorously to the point. It amplified the comment made by another poster. How was it not relevant?
This site is not a personal sandpit for you to indulge in your pet likes & dislikes. This is your warning – Incognito
You are wielding your hammer again, and threatening me, for what? My comment was directly relevant to the points made by another poster, I made nothing up, I used no foul language.
The poor suffering Venezuelans are more concerned with more basic commodores like dependable utilities and food A shortage of Oxygen is the least of their worries A bit of virtue signalling by Maduro and his henchmen that’s all this is ie a puff piece
I found this an interesting viewpoint from an USAn who is usually not too political (except where being trans in Trump's Amerika is involved – so yeah; quite political now I think of it). It's unscripted, and the second half is mostly about Star Trek; because that's a lens through which she finds the world makes sense (the; Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, slogan certainly gets many repetitions). This quote starts at 5:39 and seems worth transcribing before the progression of the algorithm eclipses it:
…It is easier to radicalize a person on the right to the far left, than it is to take a person in the center to the left. Because… there is lot a similarity in that there is the recognition of a problem that this society is not working in the way it should… The only difference really is the solutions that have been offered.
Which got me thinking about some people who went from the (not too far) left to acolytes of conspiracy theories this year. Faith always seems to trump evidence (pun not intentional, but not removed either). Extremism's counter is not contrary extremism but centrism? Unfortunately the Earth's biosphere may not have time for a return to the status quo.
It's an interesting question isn't it. Before that incident, Gorbachov was in charge, but afterwards, it was Yeltsin. So realpolitik analysts consider that the real coup was Yeltsin's
Funnily enough, it's not that I actually doubt either claim, the link of his that was relevant to my comment seems reasonable. I just can't be bothered getting into a debate about whether it was right or wrong to [checks notes] assist in some small way to stop communist hardliners gaining power through military force.
The other link was quite sweet – I was almost tempted to be the fourth person to download the article just to see if what Adrian thought it said was actually what it said. But if I can't be bothered to debate a link that was relevant to what I'd said, I'm not going to go off on a tangent.
I'm working on just letting more bullshit go these days.
Surely you know Mcflocks's 'lol' was not brought on by his finding anything humourous but as attempt to ridicule the author of the comment he was replying to. I doubt he was laughing.
What I found slightly amusing was his need to further explain himself because he thought your 'lol' was similarly meant for him, and you further having to assure him that you weren't seeking to ridicule him.
This documentary has never been more relevant than it is today, and in the context of the last 30 years it's no wonder that Chomsky is still clinging to 'hope' for political change in the USA. The media's complicity in the political process has never been stronger. It used to be called propaganda but it's also called 'Manufactured Consent'
Produced in 1992, it runs for 2hr 47min and considers the propaganda model of communication and the politics of the mass-communications business, with emphasis on Chomsky's ideas and career. He's a brilliant communicator, and this alone makes watching and following this documentary quite easy despite it's length.
In the context of some of the discussion above quoting media sources, this is a must watch.
Perhaps it will be shown on the Maori Channel sometime, it's virtually the only NZ TV station to run intelligent and thought provoking programs that challenge the status quo.
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
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Download the 6 page housing build 'plan' announced yesterday: https://www.hud.govt.nz/community-and-public-housing/increasing-public-housing/public-housing-plan/
From the sidebar, Colonel Trotter dons a straw hat to defend us all against the consequences of that Bernard Hickey chap's revolutionary incitements about housing prices. http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-economic-consequences-of-mr-hickey.html
Small price to pay to address one of the major drivers of inequality, third world health outcomes for some and mental ill health.
Hickey’s plan has as much chance of being adopted by either main party as you have propelling yourself to the moon using only farts.
Like most people here I think he government should embark on a government funded house building spree AKA the 1950s and 1960s.
But they won't. Labour is all about technocratic woke neoliberalism – and in this country that is an election winning combination, since our technocratic elites are competent and our liberal middle class who runs everything is woke as fuck.
Of course, you CAN try and drain that swamp by voting for outsider candidates and get your revolution to cut house prices by 50%, but you are far, far more likely to end up with Donald Trump or Boris Johnson than you are with Che Guevara.
So really, if we want housing change we are all going to have to start getting real about what levers a neoliberal government under pressure might pull to get more houses built. And that is only, in NZ, going to be through the NGO housing sector.
Following a recent BBQ, I stood a chance of said propulsion, with the effects of the paua fritters I had consumed the night before.
hahahaha go easy on the garlic powder!
NGO social housing seems to be the 'answer' both our centre parties can agree on. Yay.
Hang on there, are you actually claiming Trotter is right (a 1990s style recession eventuates from Hickeys housing policy) and that this is a political price worth paying?
More along the lines of implement Hickey's suggestions and reap the benefits.
As we have found, there are unintended consequences in radical times. After all, how many recent articles are there where economists have either got it totally wrong it didn't anticipate certain outcomes?
That's actually a yes then.
Would you like to elaborate on the benefits of the 1990s recession for us? I think Ruth Richardsons position was probably that the reforms getting passed justified the pain. But with 30 years of hindsight we might consider if the consequences were justified especially for those whose careers were interrupted by the high unemployment of that time.
Sorry, I could have been clearer.
I have as much faith in Trotter's reckons as any economists predictions i.e. very little.
We do need a correction, a shift or a radical change. BAU doesn't cut it- wealth accumulating into fewer and fewer hands.
However its not a zero sum game. Whatever the cause the general fall out from a major recession would easily be worse than the on going property price rises.
Of note, last year the government had an opportunity to run that experiment just by implementing lockdown without the accompanying wage subsidy (which was proportionally the largest in the world). This would certainly have landed the economy in a recession and quite likely would have prevented the latest price rises.
Unless you think that was preferable (Labour would have lost the election of course in this case) then the reforms must avoid such a recession or have a plan to mitigate it. Pertinently Trotter is asking the economist (Hickey) what that plan is because its widely known this is a likely consequence of such a price collapse. Its also what happened across multiple countries when their property bubbles collapsed, we have somewhat more evidence its a real problem than just recons. Its also the kind of advice being given to Ardern and why she is telling the country she doesn't want to cause a price collapse.
The surface dismissal of what Trotter is saying without either engaging with the argument (or even just to state their belief that property market collapse wouldn't cause a recession) doesn't endear.
I feel we are talking past each other.
Politically, you seem to be saying we must not frighten the horses. I am of the opinion they need a jolly good rark up. Maybe a gate or two left open.
Plus the the other part of housing affordability is the income/wages side of it. Incomes/benefits/wages need to rise.
Well I didn't have a sense of talking past each other, but if you want to move the discussion onto stables then we certainly are now.
Soaring house prices are from govt QE poured into the banking sector, not wage subsidies. Trickle-down nonsense again.
This is incorrect, though a widely held myth. Soaring house prices are based on what the latest batch of house buyers are willing to pay for the houses they purchased. Often they borrowed to make those purchases, so also deposit and lending criteria, etc…
But in no way did government spending facilitate those decisions. The government could have funded itself in many ways including, normal DMO operations (though at higher interest rates) or OMF or if Grant Robertson found 60 billion down the back of the couch.
So how should the government have completed its deficit spending to avoid these recent price rises?
And a calculated assumption that the poor, the homeless , the disenfranchised will not
rise up or indeed be championed by the same middle class with property portfolios.
It seems to me Bernard Hickey is entirely unserious about solving the countries housing issues and instead he (along with a huge proportion of the vocal insolent left) prefers the high ground of oppositional politics. Why else would you propose a scheme which has zero chance of implementation?
Either Bernard Hickey wishes to be taken seriously on the issue or he does not. If he wants his views to be relegated to the background noise of a increasingly petulant twitterati left then he can carry on proposing such pie in the sky policy prescriptions. Or he can start coming up with some concrete ideas that might have a chance of actually being adopted.
As I've pointed out a few times in the past, the one thing worse than a housing market that's too hot, is one that's dropping.
As we have experienced a rise so meteoric in the last year – Part due to government action of quantitive easing and throwing $$ without taking action to counteract what this has done to property. The market has plenty of slack to allow for the market to drop to levels that we were experiencing this time last year. Problem is that our PM finds moderate increases as acceptable. To our PM: every period that rises are over and above disposable income increases guess what ? – It gets more difficult to buy a family home, or are many comfortable with a timid response ??
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/108601/2020-capped-19-rise-house-prices-year-despite-sharp-jump-volumes-sold-prices-were#:~:text=New%20Zealand%20house%20prices%20rose,gain%20rate%20to%20%2B%24422.
So even if they dropped 20%, house prices would be back to the terrible times of… last year.
Less terrible than were we are now 🤫, but those who comment regarding aversions to see property prices drops forget that a return to where we were 6months. What other options are there ? stagnant property prices for many years to come as wage growth of 1% allows for an improving the house affordability trend ?
The point being that no-one wants to either buy or lend into a falling market, because of the risk of destroying all the equity and going underwater.
If there is one thing worse than a house that's too damn expensive (there is a chance you can work with that), it's a house you dare not buy regardless.
"No one".
I mean, people who want a house rather than an investment with a capital gain might be interested, mad fools they are. Who just buys a house to live in it lol
Do the Trotsker's vapours owe anything to his own house holding status?
It’s a beautiful day in Auckland. Nice feeling to know that the USA is not completely crazy and liable to start WW3 any minute
Here's the missing reporting on the massive "stop the steal" protests at state capitols all around the US that the fake news media censored. (check the whole thread)
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1351961693098799105
Still sleepless in Seattle.
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1352062780975755266
The far left in the USA has been dumped by TeamBiden and will not be happy.
They’ll be even less happy when the US business faction gets into bed with the Dem party leaders.
The “far left” being those who want the basics of a civilised democracy as opposed to the current oligarchy
While the Democrats like to think they're the 'natural party of government' in the USA, the reality is that they only very narrowly won this election. The entire popular majority for the President resides in just three states, California, New York and Florida. The swings virtually everywhere else were tiny; the fundamental voting patterns have barely changed in decades.
And you may want to keep in mind, even when losing, Trump gained more Hispanic and Black votes this election than any Republican President ever. If it were not for the shambolic COVID response, Trump would have likely romped home.
In the meantime the Republicans are now composed almost entirely of right wing populists of various nutty flavours, and their traditional support base among the business, national security and social conservatives has been completely frozen out. A smart Democrat leadership will move toward these groups, representing as they do real money and large voting blocs.
Of course this analysis isn't intended to make you happy – it's a look at what is happening rather than what you might wish would.
Sure, the Dems need to actually win in order to get shit done. But they don't need to be as pathetic as Obama and pander to Wall St quite so obsequiously. 🤮
Maybe they think themselves as true Scythians where revolutions are infinite and in continuous turmoil (and continuous revolutions have a second law constraint) see Zamyatin.
The Russians write like no-one else.
That's how they roll in that part of the world.
There's the newish dynamic prosperous urban centres of Portland and Seattle that attract a population that is young, progressive, diverse, energetic, possibly a little hot-headed, and they aren't going to take shit.
Then there's the older backblocks that aren't doing as well as they think they're entitled to and think they're still in the 1800s when the constitution of Oregon explicitly forebade non-whites. (Washington state didn't quite do that, but the vibe was still pretty clear).
So the regular rumbles between the various factions are now kind of a routine thing. Almost an expected ritual.
If there is one thing guaranteed to lose support in the USA it's political violence. not only is it morally wrong and dangerous at every level, supporting it politically as many Democrat leaders have been doing all year is monumentally stupid.
It's possibly the one factor that turned what should have been a slam dunk win over Trump into a nail-biter.
Democratic leaders have been condemning all violence for the entire last four terms. Suggesting they haven't is amplifying a right-wing smear.
In stark contrast to Darth Hater, who had been encouraging violence and dog-whistle cheering it on, with an occasional feeble hostage video repudiation when even his sycophants thought he had gone waaay too far.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/08/13/fact-check-democrats-have-condemned-violence-linked-protests/3317862001/
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-biden-condemn-violence/fact-check-joe-biden-has-condemned-violent-protests-in-the-last-three-months-idUSKBN25V2O1?edition-redirect=uk
Democratic leaders have been condemning all violence for the entire last four terms.
So cheerfully paying bail monies to arrested 'protesters' is somehow consistent with this?
From your link:
Note: not Democratic Leaders; their campaign staff, in an unofficial capacity; donating to a third-party that bails out protestors; and a statement by Biden calling out violence.
The fact that left wing protests regularly turned into violence of one sort or another virtually all damned year – and that protest leaders and Democrats did little but token hand-wringing to stop it is something the left owns now whether you like it or not.
BLM and other leftish protests regularly turned into violence (at a rate of about 4% to 6% of all protests) mostly because of police and white supremacists initiating violence.
The police had an obligation to ensure protestors could exercise their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble: the police abjectly failed, and indeed, were often the proximate cause of the violation of the protestors rights. In direct contravention of their obligations and oaths.
That RWNJs are now furiously gaslighting to deflect blame doesn’t change the facts.
edit: here’s just one link of many that are easily found just be googling police brutality blm protests.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-07/police-brutality-caught-on-film-black-lives-matter/12330672
So the link to the Antifa protest yesterday that sparked this thread, is a deep fake video? Or white supremacists reacting to police provocation?
And if BLM want to base an entire movement on the basis of less than 20 unjustified deaths per year (out of tens of million of police encounters), then your 4 – 6% of protests that turn ugly cannot be dismissed either.
The simple truth you keep dodging is that while I don't have to hassle any brain cells to rank the order of importance between the Capitol invasion and the the burning down of a Seven11 – the ongoing news clips showing political violence done either in the name of or under the cover of ostensibly left wing protests all year cannot be erased from the voters mind either.
And unless I've missed something, I have yet to see any pro-BLM/Antifa people here on this thread actually condemning the Antifa violence seen even yesterday. What we get instead are denial, minimising and deflection at every step.
A lot of those spnosored bail bonds will be to people who were victims of police violence, but apparently it's still all the fault of the "left wing".
You got it McFlock.
The fact that you continue to misrepresent what your own links say, to demonise civil rights protests, makes clear the rabidity of your own partisanship, whether you like it or not.
If them antifa folk would stop running headlong into police batons and redneck fists, peace would descend. Saw it on Faux News so it must be true.
Just in case it's not clear.
https://twitter.com/LilithGoode/status/1352346266794127365
Four of the five permanent members of the Security Council all began their modern states with bloody revolutions.
All four founded those revolutionary states on principles that they thought were universal.
So if or when the trial of Derek Chauvin fails to deliver the outcome the mob wants, do you think the USA should burn?
It's a bad faith form of debate to use loaded questions to force opinion.
So you want to reserve the option to both allow the left to condemn political violence for reasons of respectability, but at the same time cheer it on when it suits because 'racism'.
Does that cover it off?
As we all know, the springbok tour in '81 was called off because people frowned pointedly at it.
@McF
Does this mean you support political violence when you think it's justified?
And does this extend to when other people think it's justified?
Of course I support violence when I think it's justified. Why would I oppose justified violence?
Does it extend to other people's idea of justification? Within reason. Individual circumstances are not always precise, nor is the level of violence chosen.
I'm a great fan of a "reasonable person" assessment. I know it doesn't fit with your desire for categorical imperatives that can be adapted as rules for your positronic neural network, but that's the difficulty of being human.
The category of political violence is absolute; it's either allowable or not.
And even Uncle Joe thought he was being reasonable.
Did he really? Or was he just a bastard?
And as we previously discovered, what you count as "political violence" is not as categorical as you claim. Damaging property and threatening people with assault in order to protest materialism is fine, if it's "performative" enough.
Of course you can claim the 'cleansing of the Temple' was political violence because it suits your argument. I think it was a legitimate protest, disruptive yes, but not violent. (There is no evidence from the account anyone was hurt.)
That's my point, you think you're being reasonable, when I don't. So which one of us gets to define what is acceptable or not? It just becomes a matter of opinion, and the fucking nazis are just as free to have their opinion as Antifa.
My argument is simply that whenever there is any doubt, political violence must be out of bounds. The most watertight definition is the most reliable one.
(oxford)
No need for hurt.
So if nobody is hurt it's not violence? The dude made a whip, ffs. Not sure anyone was hurt (by protestors) in the "violence" at portland yesterday, either.
Neither of us do. There is no central Decider who makes the determination. We are judged by our peers, voters, judiciary, and history. All of them get to change their minds at any time. You might despise that sort of ethical melieu, but the objective isn't a categorical line in the sand. The objective is to not go down in history as being too much of a dick. John Brown is another dude who I'd rather be like than someone who just frowned at slavery and did nothing.
Have you not been paying attention? There is always some shred of doubt. By your rules, anyone who tried to kill Hitler in the 1930s was wrong, as well. Bullshit.
This is where these discussions usually end up, with RL making up his own definitions for words.
solkta is now using a modern dictionary to parse events that took place 2000 years ago.
If you think that era was at all touched by the concerns of the modern woke, you really need to read some history.
Setting aside the historicity of the bible narrative here are some examples of the 'woke'-ness RL so derides:
https://mountaineagle.com/stories/how-jesus-responded-to-racism,26438
RL:
Because we're using English, not Latin or Aramaic.
Violence, violentiam, βία: it's the same in any language from any era.
Well that of course is why Christ is remembered – he did challenge the norms of the era and set in place a moral framework that still informs the modern world.
But if you imagine the account of the 'cleansing of the Temple' would have stacked up as 'violent' in terms of how people thought in those quite different times, I think you and McF are suffering a quite bad dose of presentism.
Notably Christ's approach to the issues you list is based however not in identity politics and power struggle, but through the 'rebirth of the soul' within the heart of each individual. That's my problem with woke – it takes good causes and uses them to cloak bad actions.
By your rules, anyone who tried to kill Hitler in the 1930s was wrong, as well. Bullshit.
Well that's because we know what happened subsequently in the 1940's. Now how would you feel if someone had tried or even succeeded in assassinating Trump?
My copy of the bible is in English.
RL, why can't you just admit that you were wrong? Why are you so incapable of that?
Hmmm. In 2016? Probably would have been a bit ambivalent about it. Less ambivalent if I knew literally hundreds of thousands of lives might have been saved.
But then if Hitler had been assassinated in 1935 and I was reading about it in a history book, same deal.
RL, why can't you just admit that you were wrong? Why are you so incapable of that?
In the 14 yrs I've been commenting here I never thought to demand that of anyone.
My point is simple – if you are going to insist on reserving the right to use political violence in the name of your own cause, then you will have no defense when your opponents do the same.
Or indeed any other form of violence.
Probably would have been a bit ambivalent about it.
I would have condemned it absolutely outright. As would indeed the vast majority of 'reasonable' people I suggest.
You've completely forgotten the very purpose of politics. It's to substitute dialog and negotiation for coercion and war.
When you allow violence to creep in through the cracks – you will inevitably find it betrays democracy and civilisation. Everything you thought worth saving.
Yeah, his repeated early moves on race-based immigration didn't worry many people you'd regard as "reasonable". But they were pretty fucking strong portents of looming fascism.
I'd have been against it a bit because maybe he hadn't met the threshold of harm that warranted assassination, but for it a bit because he looked like he had a good chance of going there. Ambivalent. Hell, I'm still ambivalent about whether it would have been a good thing at the start of his presidency. Would Pence's Gilead have been worse than 400k covid deaths and open fascism? Can't say for sure.
What happens when the State claims a monopoly on violence, but then that State goes rogue, ignores the democratic will of the people, and indeed begins oppressing its own? From the Declaration of Independence:
@RL In the 14 yrs I've been commenting here I never thought to demand that of anyone.
Some people are able to admit when they are wrong about something and this enables them to learn new things. Others just want to prance around like a peacock.
A little singe now and again.
The focus of BLM had gained good impact in the new administration already. They generated massive marches and some fires on the streets.
Whereas attacking the Senate has massively damaged the Republicans. Hopefully it splits them and there's a nice new splinter party formed.
So you do need the sense to put your sights on the right target if you're going to set fires.
A little singe now and again.
Well compared to say Yeltsin using tanks to shell the Kremlin, how does the 'storming of the Capitol' stack up? Just a little singe?
My point I think is this; unless you have categorically ruled political violence out of bounds, then you (or anyone else) will always find a reason to justify it to suit themselves.
But not the other guys.
Wasn't Yeltsin putting down a coup, not fomenting one?
Well most of the people at the Capitol thought exactly the same; they were there to defend the Constitution not overthrow it.
Do you think that this belief was reasonable?
I don't think it was reasonable – but I'll bet the vast majority of people who went almost certainly thought it was. The accounts I've read support this.
So? They are unreasonable. Who decides that? People in general, over time.
What do we know, through careful examination of the facts? The insurrectionists got much of their plan wrong. They lacked reason. They livestreamed their crimes. Lack of reason. They had faith in dolt45. Lack of reason.
Yelstin: there was an attempted coup. Coup plotters had arrest lists and military forces. He organised resistance to the coup. Coup plotters didn't surrender, he shelled their position. All reasonable actions.
If you doubt your own ability to assess reasonable actions and arguments, that's your problem.
If you doubt your own ability to assess reasonable actions and arguments, that's your problem.
I'm not the one who is willing to commit violence in the name of your always reasonable cause, nor condone an assassination if it suits your political view.
I've assessed that violence represents the abdication of politics, the point at which you've plunged into the abyss.
No dude.
You will be the good man who stands by and does nothing because you can't trust your mental faculties and you might therefore be wrong. Frowns don't stop nazis.
They are unreasonable. Who decides that? People in general, over time.
Which is why we reserve violence for the state; it alone has the capacity to make the collective determination you're asking for here.
And if the state has degenerated into an intolerable tyranny then it can be resisted by defying it courageously. Ghandi, Mandela and King showed how it’s done.
Resorting to mob violence is the cowards way out.
Actually, if you think Mandela was a pacifist then you're probably right to mistrust your judgement.
BLM protests aren't the riots you paint them as, but even if they all were, MLK said "riots are the language of the unheard". He didn't approve, but he understood. He didn't just fire off categorical imperatives as an excuse to dismiss the issue.
Gandhi was also not as categorical as you: "where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Apparently also recruited Indians to serve as British soldiers in WW1.
Let's see: Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Jesus… none of them lived up to Redlogix's pacifist ideals.
Yet each of these leaders are held in such high esteem precisely because they achieved their remarkable goals with the bare minimum of disruption and force necessary. Their primary leverage was a moral not physical.
The general trend of human evolution has been away from coercion and violence to resolve conflicts of interest, toward dialog and negotiation. In this process we have slowly ceded our right to personal forceful action upward to higher authority. First to the clan, the tribe, the warlord, the city state and now the nation state.
At each step we've gained increasing freedom in our daily lives from violence. At this point in time humans are probably the least violent we've ever been. Pinker has made this case very well.
This is not necessarily because our personal capacity for violence has diminished, but because we have created social structures that regulate and moderate it on our collective behalf.
Meanwhile, in the real world nobody lives up to your categorical imperatives, St RedLogix. Not even the people you list.
I agree, minimum force should be used. I worked under that rule for 20 years, always knowing any instance could be put to a test of reasonableness in court. But "never"? You're setting absurdly high goals for any movement, there, let alone one you seem to oppose.
And in my view the principle of non-violence must take precedence. There is no more excuse for individuals resorting to violence for a political purpose than there is for domestic violence.
It's the same logic, just taken to the next wider social level.
A view not shared even by more than half the folks you name-dropped to support it.
Yet manifestly they're all celebrated precisely for the success of their non-violent approach.
It's a very odd thing that you should now be consigning them to the same dustbin history along with all the assorted thugs, warlords and failed revolutionaries who only ever reached for violent means to prosecute their cause.
If that's your genuine take-away from the discussion, all I can do is be thankful that you have enough awareness remaining to doubt the reasonableness of your beliefs.
Now I'll have to generate a post on revolutions.
You may want to consider that what we think permissible, changes with time. My view is that the boundaries on violence are being gradually extended from virtually no limits at all – toward ideally a total prohibition in any form.
Which direction do you want to take?
RL, your view seems not to correspond with reality. The difference between those engaged in violence in support of a fascist coup and others fighting oppression seems quite clear to other commenters. For one thing; the oppressors expect to get away with their crimes, whereas the oppressed expect to be harshly punished, but do it anyway.
This is the best I have seen it stated:
The difference between those engaged in violence in support of a fascist coup and others fighting oppression seems quite clear to other commenters.
It's a remarkable conceit to imagine that you're always on the side of the angels and the other guys are always the oppressors.
It's the idea that the left can never do any wrong that doesn't correlate with reality.
You think that only "the mob" wants justice in the Chauvin case?
Everyone would want to see the correct legal outcome that most people considered just; but it would be a mob that went on a rampage afterward if they didn't like it.
… political violence. not only is it morally wrong and dangerous at every level, supporting it politically as many Democrat leaders have been doing all year is monumentally stupid.
Democratic politicians are outspoken supporters of the most extreme violence by insurrectionary mobs in Venezuela and by Israeli snipers against unarmed protestors in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank.
Where on earth do you get the idea that Democrats oppose violence?
I am not that familiar with twitter, but this Disclose.tv thread looks a bit dodgy there Poisson.
Hopefully, in the next few days, we will see some details about those eight arrested. I wouldn't be quite so quick to ascribe the actions to "Antifa", though I guess ICE is arguably fascist enough for people to be anti it. But Anarchist is not the same as Antifa, despite sounding similar, and sometimes sharing similar objectives. The J20 protests the previous 4 years have certainly seemed a bit larger, but also featured flag burning. From 2017:
https://katu.com/news/local/portland-protests-large-crowd-begins-to-gather-at-pioneer-courthouse-square
But it's not entirely clear if the group is the same as those of previous years with McKelvey, then leader of "Portland's Resistance" seeming to have moved to Atlanta in mid-2018. And there are no repeated names in the lists of arrested between the two years (can't be bothered hunting up 2016,18&19 details – have enough tabs open as it is). Also not the only protest in Portland that day:
https://katu.com/news/local/protesters-at-j20-demonstration-march-through-southeast-portland
https://katu.com/news/local/portland-organizer-gregory-mckelvey-accepts-job-in-atlanta-living-room
but this Disclose.tv thread looks a bit dodgy
Who knows? I mean look at this dodgy old codger in Mittens.
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1352047055754166274
The Global Disinformation Index seems to think that they know. Naming Disclose.tv as one of the top 10 biggest profiteers from publishing election disinformation in November 2020.
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1352394019352027136?s=20
https://disinformationindex.org/about/
BTW Demonstrating that they are willing to photoshop Sanders for the lols doesn’t really help your case does it Poisson?
https://twitter.com/erocdrahs/status/1352323716143853570
Hopefully, in the next few days, we will see some details about those eight arrested.
Stop spreading disinformation,the link was to Seattle NOT Portland,it is also in the mainstream media
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/protesters-march-through-downtown-seattle-arrests-made-for-property-damage/
I hope you will do better in this years NCEA comprehension exams.
Poisson, yeah – I should have been more specific about my search terms; "Antifa protest", was clearly insufficient, but quicker to type. The Seattle protest looks more minor, so only two arrests there.
I would apologize for derailing your thread, but seeing as you were doing that to Andre yourself, won't.
No police in sight so they're probably snofwake trumpkins.
Grainne Moss has just stepped down as boss of Oranga Tamariki.
Sir Wira Gardiner is the new Acting.
All fine to get the scalp of a senior public servant if that's the game you hunt.
But now the Maori leadership who hunted her will be owning the results.
Pretty much. When the government got serious about child abuse and changed the law to allow uplift where the threat was clear Maori activists and leaders couldn't see past their reflexive sense of grievance.
Maori leadership has chosen not to see James Whakaruru as the victim of child abuse with painful questions about Maori culpability, preferring to focus on the easy portrayal of the likes of Te Rangi Whakaruru and Benny Haerewa as victims of colonisation. As you say, now they will get their chance to own the results.
It is highly probable that all roles will be reversed….hopefully not to the detriment of those the organisation is expected to protect.
The report on this from last year is pretty hard work:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/01/increasing-numbers-of-m-ori-babies-being-removed-from-families-despite-falling-rates-of-abuse-report.html
The 2020 report found that moving Maori babies into state care happens earlier than it does for non-Māori – with the decision increasingly being made before the child is even born.
"There were eight times more concerns reported for unborn Māori babies in 2019, as compared with 2004. In that same time, reported concerns for non-Māori increased only 4.5 times.
In 2010 there were 36 approvals for unborn Māori children to be removed from their families at birth – by 2017 that had risen to 93, despite findings of actual abuse decreasing over that same period.
In 2019, 0.67 percent of pēpi aged three months or under were taken into state care, but only 0.13 percent of non-Māori.
Urgent decisions to remove pepi doubled over the last decade, but stayed the same for non-Māori."
Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft had words to say about that.
"And 48 percent of pregnant women whose pēpi were taken into state care before birth had been in state care themselves at some point."
"From 2014 to 2017, the removal of Māori babies ordered into state custody before birth almost doubled."
Yes , the stats are difficult reading but that wasnt my point (and it may be premature in any case, the organisation is still state led)….I was suggesting that rather than Maori highlighting the failings of the state organisation, it is likely that the state (and certainly others) will highlight any failings of a Maori led response….and my concern is the objective is lost.
Though as already noted it would be difficult to do any worse than the existing structure
Even though it is a low bar, surely things can only improve with new management. Less of the corporate/'market' driven focus.
email to RNZ…
Professor Stephen Hoadley starts his talk about the state of democracy in the USA by stating that Venezuela is a third world county and implying that it's democracy and thereby it's elections are and where undemocratic.
Jesse I would have thought that you would have enough knowledge around world politics to push back on this false narrative Mr. Hoadley openly used, which is widely known as fake news.
Ecumenical observers declare Venezuela’s elections transparent and efficient
https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/ecumenical-observers-declare-venezuelas-elections-transparent-and-efficient/
Venezuela's Maduro invites UN, EU observers to December elections
https://www.france24.com/en/20200903-venezuela-s-maduro-invites-un-eu-observers-to-december-elections
International Observers Back up Venezuela's Elections Results
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/International-Observers-Back-up-Venezuelas-Elections-Results–20201208-0006.html
Please read a correction on this matter to correct the record for RNZ listeners.
Best
Adrian
Hawkes Bay
If true (which I doubt) it says a lot about the IQ of the average voter in Venezuela, ie the ones that are left with half the county voting with their feet vs a fraudulent ballot box
What evidence do you have that it was fraudulent, Red? You sound like Trump.
The BBC, ( no right wing attack dog) The US state department all think it was a bit dodgy plus the millions who have left Venezuela just as a start Putin, China North Korea and Cuba said it was ok so that all helps to affirm it was dodgy
"The BBC, ( no right wing attack dog)"you are quite right, the BBC are Liberal free market attack dogs, so have a common enemy in Venezuela.
The BBC, ( no right wing attack dog)
???!!?? You are obviously unfamiliar with their role of megaphone for the right wing British regime—most shamefully in the persecution of the dissenting journalist Julian Assange. The BBC's short-lived democratic deviation in 2003, when Andrew Gilligan went rogue and actually told the truth about Blair and Campbell's manipulation of documents leading up to the destruction of Iraq, was soon ended.
The US state department all think it was a bit dodgy
The Trump regime, that is.
plus the millions who have left Venezuela
They left a country under brutal, and illegal, sanctions. That shows what suffering has been inflicted on the country by the United States, the U.K., and Colombia; it does not imply they are opponents of their elected government.
just as a start Putin, China North Korea and Cuba said it was ok so that all helps to affirm it was dodgy
???? You have no evidence to back up your claim, other than the word of the Trump regime.
Well written, Adrian. Steve Hoadley is an extremely unsavoury commentator, not a lot different from the likes of Michael Bassett and Waikato's notorious Dov Bing. During the November 2012 escalation in Israeli terror against the citizens of Gaza, named with brutal sarcasm "Operation Pillar of Defense", Hoadley went onto Radio Rhema and expressed his support not for the victims, but the killers.
I fear that you're wasting your time trying to reason with Jesse Mulligan; he's one of the more susceptible and easily bamboozled broadcasters. He was, and presumably still is, a true believer in the Russiagate nonsense, as we can see in this 2016 interview with another dodgy academic, Al Gillespie….
[This is another one of your comments that’s just a litany of ad homs and snide remarks about people whilst dearly lacking in content. To give it some appearance of realism and gravity, it is ornamented with one of those boring transcripts, which is no better than those puerile images that you’re so fond of. Lastly, it is about something utterly trivial that happened years ago.
Cut out the crap and stop the ad homs for the sake of it. Add some substance and contents to your comments, make it interesting and relevant, if you can, or keep quiet. This site is not a personal sandpit for you to indulge in your pet likes & dislikes. This is your warning – Incognito]
Yes listening to Mulligan (which I only do very rarely these days) is like listening to a slightly sophisticated teenage radio show…along with most of his music choices, morning report has pretty much sunk to that same level now as well. It seems like serious unbiased news is well and truly a thing of the past on RNZ now (with the rare exception of course)…lucky we still RNZ concert.
See my Moderation note @ 3:29 PM.
This is another one of your comments that’s just a litany of ad homs and snide remarks about people whilst dearly lacking in content.
Adrian Thornton made the comment about Prof. Hoadley's unfounded and politically incendiary claims about Venezuela—Adrian called them a "false narrative"—and he also expressed his disappointment at the quality, or lack of quality, in Jesse Mulligan's performance. I simply reinforced Adrian's points by providing evidence of even worse performances in the past by Hoadley and Mulligan. Both of the examples I provided were accurate; they were neither ad hominem nor snide.
To give it some appearance of realism and gravity, it is ornamented with one of those boring transcripts
I provided 14 lines of a larger transcript to illustrate my point about Mulligan's credulous and ill informed comments. It is indeed realistic, and any lack of gravity is entirely due to the two people involved in that awful conversation.
Add some substance and contents to your comments, make it interesting and relevant, if you can, or keep quiet.
I kept my comment rigorously to the point. It amplified the comment made by another poster. How was it not relevant?
This site is not a personal sandpit for you to indulge in your pet likes & dislikes. This is your warning – Incognito
You are wielding your hammer again, and threatening me, for what? My comment was directly relevant to the points made by another poster, I made nothing up, I used no foul language.
A 'third world' country that sends oxygen to it's extremely rich neighbour. Simply because people need it.
https://www.reuters.com/article/healthcoronavirus-brazil-venezuela/venezuela-to-send-oxygen-to-brazil-for-covid-19-treatment-idUSL1N2JQ0T4
The poor suffering Venezuelans are more concerned with more basic commodores like dependable utilities and food A shortage of Oxygen is the least of their worries A bit of virtue signalling by Maduro and his henchmen that’s all this is ie a puff piece
'shortage of Oxygen is the least of their worries'
I think your knowledge of Venezuela is minimal, and that your bigotry drives you to simply makes things up to support what you opine.
' poor suffering Venezuelans '
As if you really cared a jot about Venezuelans.
I found this an interesting viewpoint from an USAn who is usually not too political (except where being trans in Trump's Amerika is involved – so yeah; quite political now I think of it). It's unscripted, and the second half is mostly about Star Trek; because that's a lens through which she finds the world makes sense (the; Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, slogan certainly gets many repetitions). This quote starts at 5:39 and seems worth transcribing before the progression of the algorithm eclipses it:
Which got me thinking about some people who went from the (not too far) left to acolytes of conspiracy theories this year. Faith always seems to trump evidence (pun not intentional, but not removed either). Extremism's counter is not contrary extremism but centrism? Unfortunately the Earth's biosphere may not have time for a return to the status quo.
@McFlock
Wasn't Yeltsin putting down a coup, not fomenting one?
It's an interesting question isn't it. Before that incident, Gorbachov was in charge, but afterwards, it was Yeltsin. So realpolitik analysts consider that the real coup was Yeltsin's
lol I suspect it was more that the coup destroyed the Soviet Union, but left Russia intact. But fair call, he did walk out on top.
And so did the KGB. Nice thing about being the greasy eminince is that you can switch favourites when things look bad, I guess 🙂
Yep, just another case of good ol' fashioned US election meddling…(1996 election)
Overriding Democracy: American Intervention in Yeltsin’s 1996 Reelection Campaign
https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/uahistjrnl/article/id/622/
US agents helped Yeltsin break coup
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/us-agents-helped-yeltsin-break-coup-1436470.html
lol
k whatevs.
lol
Funnily enough, it's not that I actually doubt either claim, the link of his that was relevant to my comment seems reasonable. I just can't be bothered getting into a debate about whether it was right or wrong to [checks notes] assist in some small way to stop communist hardliners gaining power through military force.
The other link was quite sweet – I was almost tempted to be the fourth person to download the article just to see if what Adrian thought it said was actually what it said. But if I can't be bothered to debate a link that was relevant to what I'd said, I'm not going to go off on a tangent.
I'm working on just letting more bullshit go these days.
A good exercise in not getting drawn into pointless time wasting adventures.
Sometimes it's just easier to laugh, especially when it involves the usual half dozen russian defence squad.
Surely you know Mcflocks's 'lol' was not brought on by his finding anything humourous but as attempt to ridicule the author of the comment he was replying to. I doubt he was laughing.
What I found slightly amusing was his need to further explain himself because he thought your 'lol' was similarly meant for him, and you further having to assure him that you weren't seeking to ridicule him.
Dare I suggest a room?
If you really want to interpret my motives for commenting, try considering whether I am more inclined to interact with Al1en rather than Adrian.
Open Mike is a handy enough "room", thanks.
This isn't a text chat room for teenagers you two, at least try to speak like grown ups.
ok boomer.
And using the reply button. You pesky kid lol
This documentary has never been more relevant than it is today, and in the context of the last 30 years it's no wonder that Chomsky is still clinging to 'hope' for political change in the USA. The media's complicity in the political process has never been stronger. It used to be called propaganda but it's also called 'Manufactured Consent'
Produced in 1992, it runs for 2hr 47min and considers the propaganda model of communication and the politics of the mass-communications business, with emphasis on Chomsky's ideas and career. He's a brilliant communicator, and this alone makes watching and following this documentary quite easy despite it's length.
In the context of some of the discussion above quoting media sources, this is a must watch.
Perhaps it will be shown on the Maori Channel sometime, it's virtually the only NZ TV station to run intelligent and thought provoking programs that challenge the status quo.